When Freshmen Attack!

I’ve set up a blog for my World Cultures 120 students at the University of Evansville, something akin to what my students at Kentucky Wesleyan College have been up to.  But, WC120 is quite a bit different.  For starters, it is not a straightforward Rhet/Comp course.  It is part of UE’s writing curriculum, but it is more a cross between a writing course and a great books course.  The fall semester includes writing about and reading a number of texts from the classical world:  The Epic of Gilgamesh, Plato, The Qur’an, Genesis, and a number of other texts from multiple cultures around the world.  The spring semester becomes much more Euro-centric, beginning with Martin Luther’s On Christian Liberty, emphasizing thought development from the Renaissance, and stretching through the early 20th century.  I try to track their readings back to something they know from their own cultural experiences, or that they at least find relevant to them. 

I’ve posted three entries on the blog, two of which ask for their responses.  We’ve been reading Sor Juan Ines de la Cruz’s “Letter in Response to Sor Filotea”, a text widely considered to be a forceful 17th century advocacy of intellectual freedom and equality for women.  To my suprise, despite the letter’s difficulty (our translation maintains some arcane grammatical and syntactical forms), they read the letter with enthusiasm and did their best to understand it.  I tied Sor Juana’s argument into modern questions concerning gender equality, getting them to brainstorm and freewrite about gender differences and instances in which those differences manifest and in which we seem to transcend them.  Thus, I had them research and write in response to the Equal Rights Amendment.  If you peruse their responses, I think you’ll be impressed by some of their thinking.  It remains rather general, but the ideas are there.

I’ve also posted John Donne’s “Holy Sonnet XIV” as just one example of religiously themed poetry from the 17th century.  So far, their responses are quite good. 

One key component to using this version of Web 2.0 is the sense of audience it can create.  My students have so far completely changed their thinking and approach to writing — they feel as though they’re writing for an audience other than me.  For WC120, I’ve set two sections up on the same blog; thus, they are sharing ideas across sections on the blog, enhancing their sense of audience. 

For the coming fall semester, I’m scheduled to teach writing, an Introduction to Literature course, and I’ll probably teach World Cultures 110.  I’m considering establishing blogs for each school (Kentucky Wesleyan College will set them up, anyway), and perhaps developing a short podcast to supplement in-class instruction.  One of my favorite podcasts is Dave and Howard Shepherd’s The Word Nerds, devoted to “words, language, and why we say the things we do.”  It would be a natural template on which to base such a podcast.

But, I need to become much more tech savvy.  I write for The Hog’s Head, along with several others, but I know virtually nothing of how Travis creates the attending pubcast.